


Compass

by HopefulNebula



Category: Star Trek: Enterprise
Genre: Backstory, Canon Compliant, Episode Tag, Gen, Introspection, POV First Person, References to Trip/T'Pol, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-02-07
Updated: 2007-02-07
Packaged: 2018-11-18 17:42:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11295567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HopefulNebula/pseuds/HopefulNebula
Summary: T'Pol's thoughts on receiving her gift in "Borderland."





	Compass

**Author's Note:**

> I originally posted this as an exclusive on another archive in 2007, but in the process of consolidating my stuff I decided: it's been over a decade, that archive's not been updated in a couple years, and I might as well spread the love.

A compass. A simple device for finding the strongest magnetic north in its immediate surroundings. Humans and Vulcans both developed such inventions millennia ago. They are commonplace even now, despite the fact that they have taken different forms as the years have passed.

It is a very strange gift for a human to give.

On Vulcan, there are places where tools such as this are completely useless. They are in many ways the source of Vulcan stability, yet they themselves are driven so much by chaos that one cannot expect even magnetics to act normally. This is one of the many lessons that Vulcan children are meant to learn on their _kahs-wan_ rituals, their desert ordeals: that no matter how much control we exert upon ourselves, chaos will invariably be present within us. It is our nature, and mine has always been closer to chaos than to order.

I still have the compass I used in my _kahs-wan_ carefully wrapped in my second foremother's purse. It is traditional for parents to pass on a family possession to their children as they pass the ritual, so once I returned from the desert and the judge certified that I had passed, my mother gave it to me with the promise to tell me its story only after I had eaten and rested.

This compass, however, I will not pack away. It shall stay visible, a reminder of what I am and what I have lost. It will remind me that I have chosen my course--the _logical_ course--and it will bring me order.

How ironic it is that the warp core's magnetic fields ensure that both this compass and the one in T'Mir's handbag point toward Engineering.


End file.
